A unanimous chorus has been raised this year, by many famous footballers and coaches, against the calendar too packed with commitments. On the defendants’ table is the 2025 Club World Cup, which will last a month after the end of the European season and which has caused friction: Fifpro, the world footballers’ union, and the leagues on one side, Fifa and UEFA on the other. Kevin De Bruyne (Belgian, Manchester City) declared: «The seasons are getting longer and longer. This season could go well, but the calendar will become even more complicated with the 2026 World Cup. Some players’ associations have tried to find a solution, but nothing changes. UEFA and FIFA are interested in money».

The complaints

Bernardo Silva (Portuguese, City) said: “There are two completely different sides to the issue. When players complain, people say we can’t complain. And they are right, because we are living a dream. On the other hand, the schedule is just crazy. We found out that we will only have one day off before the FA Cup match. And if we are not eliminated from any other competition, we will play every three days for a few months. It’s absurd. In the Champions League, if you don’t qualify straight away for the round of 16, you have to play two more games. The number of teams has increased, but it hasn’t made things easier. I spend very little time with my family and friends.” And then Dayot Upamecano, Didier Deschamps, Josep Guardiola, Dani Carvajal, Robert Lewandowski, etc.

Everyone wants to make money

Football has changed, it is no longer just a sport, becoming on the one hand an industry and on the other an entertainment, and having to follow, for economic reasons, the rules. Journalistically we have reported these changes and the related economic growth, but, almost, no one has asked the question of what would happen, from speculative bubbles, read television rights, to calendars increasingly packed with matches, fewer and fewer friendlies and more and more well-paid tournaments. The Super League case is the most significant in this sense. The secret to understanding things, however, is always to follow the money and so in all this who gains? Fifa and Uefa, who have discovered that clubs are more profitable than national teams, trying to curb their debts and exploit them to the maximum with new and more ‘exciting’ competitions. The players who have seen their valuations – ridiculously disproportionate – and salaries grow, acquiring an almost absolute power over the clubs. Agents who think like investment funds, more concerned with ‘moving’ their clients to earn more on each transaction – with commissions now out of control – rather than making them grow sportingly. Those who sell television and advertising rights. While clubs see their debts increase and fans, spectators, bleed themselves dry to buy season tickets on the various platforms and to buy tickets to go to the stadium. In recent days the new Champions League has started again, with more matches, also distributed on Thursdays, therefore on 3 days out of 7, and giving up the weekend to avoid conflict with the national leagues.

“Serie A is losing value”

Everyone has known for a long time that it would happen and yet the CEO of Lega Serie A, Luigi De Siervo, expressed himself in this way on the new formula of the most coveted cup: «… it worries me because it is clear that this format takes away value from national competitions. Previously, European cup matches were held in the fall and then in the spring, now there are eight months of matches. Non-stop. They are replaceable products, perhaps those who buy from one broadcaster do not buy from another. And all national championships are really at risk, not just our Serie A». Really? I repeat, there has been talk of the reform of the Champions League for years, it was known that it would have more matches. And the reform of our professional championships? Shouldn’t it have anticipated that of the Champions League to avoid, at least for Italian teams, such an intense calendar and to make the professional system more sustainable from every point of view? Because if football has a problem, it first of all has a governance problem, unprepared, poor, more often interested in money and small-scale battles rather than in the growth of the system, the Italian one first and foremost. But, as we discovered with the Super League case, the European one is not better, without forgetting Ceferin and Infantino: terrible!

Who’s taking a step back?

And in this war against calendars there is great hypocrisy, the elephant in the living room that they try to hide. More games mean more money from tickets, season tickets, television rights and sponsors, money that is used, first and foremost, to pay players and agents. Are the former willing to take a step back? To earn a few million less, for an amount that will still be a lot? The pandemic, in this sense, had been a warning, a warning that was not heeded and rejected. The show must go on and if the players do not want to ‘interpret’ the film “Don’t they shoot horses like that?” they will have to be the first to take a step back: fewer games, more free time, less money. We wait disheartened. By the way: have fun.